


Worth Trouble

by devilinthedetails



Series: The Dog, His Songbird, and His Urchins [5]
Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Acceptance, Canon Trans Character, Canon Typical Transphobia, Discovery, Family, Gen, Lessons, M/M, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 21:51:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15156350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Haden is more trouble than he is worth.





	Worth Trouble

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for transphobia and for mentions of beating children though no children are beaten in this story.

Worth Trouble

“I tailed a cove for the Dogs into the Waterlily today.” Haden chomped into a chicken breast marinated in ginger and other exotic Carthaki spices, not caring if Okha scolded him for speaking and chewing at the same time because he was furious at the secret Okha had kept from him. “I saw ye but I don’t think ye noticed me.” 

Everyone in the Waterlily had stared at Okha during the performance that had squeezed the breath from Haden’s lungs like air from a blacksmith’s bellows. Okha had sparkled like a fallen star in a mot’s dress, mot’s jewelry, and mot’s makeup in the dark tavern, and when Okha sang in accompaniment to her instruments, it was beautifully enough to chase away the sorrows that had driven the men to the shadows of a drinking and gambling den. Okha was breathtaking but unreachable in performance, and it was that unreachability that at once infuriated and captivated Haden. 

“Ye were wearin’ a mot’s dress, facepaint, and gems,” Haden went on with a scowl when Okha made no response to his comment and seemed content to allow it to hang in the space above the supper table forever. 

“That’s my costume when I perform at the Waterlily.” Okha was calm but that only increased the turmoil inside Haden. 

“Ye shouldn’t wear it any more. It looks ugly,” Haden spat even though he had thought Okha was radiant from head to toe in the costume that had made him gape-jawed at the Waterlily. 

“Ye shouldn’t call a mot’s dress ugly.” Truda nudged Haden sharply in the ribcage with a bony elbow. “Nothin’ makes a mot nastier than that, cracknob.” 

“Okha’s no mot.” Haden rolled his eyes at his sister’s inability to understand the obvious. “That’s the problem. Okha’s no mot but prances around in mot’s clothes in taverns like a spintry.” 

“Show respect,” Nestor warned, and Haden could see his fingers tightening around his knife as he cut his chicken. “If you can’t, you can leave the table and sleep on a growling stomach. That might teach you some manners, lad.” 

Okha gave Nestor’s arm a soothing pat—around the house, Okha was the comforter to Nestor’s disciplinarian, though for all Nestor’s seeming sternness, Haden believed that Nestor’s bark was worse than his bite—and met Haden’s eyes with a placid dignity. “My clients at the Waterlily don’t share your view of my costumes, Haden.” 

“That’s because they enjoy seein’ ye dressed like a freak of nature.” Haden threw down his utensils and shoved his plate away from him, his stomach squirming with a sickness he blamed on the ginger and the degrading mot’s outfit Okha wore to entertain in taverns. Truda was gawking at him as if he had just sprouted a dragon’s head, but that couldn’t prevent Haden from spewing his scorn. “I don’t.” 

“Go to your room before I thrash you, Haden.” Nestor’s finger shook with barely confined wrath as he pointed it at the doorway. Nestor threatened Haden and Truda with beatings that he never delivered almost as often as he drew breath, but this time Haden had the shuddering realization that Nestor was serious as Sweating Sickness. “If you ever call Okha a freak of nature again, you won’t want to sit for a week, I promise you.” 

Haden bolted out of his chair, hearing it crash to the floor from the haste of his departure, and fled to the sanctuary of his and Truda’s bedroom as swiftly as his legs would carry him, but he couldn’t outrun the echoes of Nestor ranting to the rafters that Haden was more trouble than he was worth. Collapsing on his bed, Haden snatched up his pillow and wrapped it around his ears to muffle the shouting that sounded too much like exile from the only family and home he had in a lonely world miserable as a morning gray with fog dawning over the city. 

When the door to his refuge creaked open, Haden glanced up with a gaze watery from tears he was too stubborn to shed. His thudding heart expected to see Nestor looming in the doorway with a switch or a strap, but it was Okha who swept into the room empty-handed, tugged his pillow away from his ears, and settled beside him on his bed. 

“You hurt me when you called my costume ugly and accused me of being a freak of nature.” Okha’s firm hands cupped Haden’s chin. “Those are rejecting words, not accepting ones, and families should always be accepting of who each other are, Haden. My first family rejected me, so I built a new one with you, Truda, and Nestor that I hoped would be more accepting of who I am.” 

“I’ll try to be more acceptin’ of ye from now on.” Haden wasn’t certain that he would ever be able to accept all of Okha’s oddities, but he did love Okha as a parent even if he would never embarrass himself by admitting aloud to such emotion for someone who had no blood in common with him. “I’m sorry for the things I said at the table, Okha. Mayhaps Nestor is right, and I’m more trouble than I’m worth.” 

“I don’t know about that.” Okha’s teeth flashed in a grin bright as the pearls Haden had been so astonished to see on Okha’s necklace at the Waterlily. “You’re a lot of trouble, no denying that, but you’re worth a lot too. Besides if Nestor and I are going to ask you to accept us for who we are, we’ve got to accept you from the little rascal you are. Fair is fair, and family is family.” 

No longer feeling rejected and wondering why he had tried to push Okha away in the first place with his snide remarks about Okha dressing as a mot, Haden asked, because Okha’s music had enraptured him and because he was determined to make Okha forget his spitefulness at supper, “Will ye teach me how to sing and play instruments like ye did back at the Waterlily?” 

“Only if you want to learn.” Okha’s tone was dry as sand on the beach. “I won’t force music on you.” 

“I want to learn,” insisted Haden, eyes widening earnestly. “Your singin’ was the most beautiful thing I ever heard. It made me imagine mermaids though they’ve been gone for two centuries. I could hear the ocean and the wind in yer music.” 

“Then we’ll start your lessons tomorrow.” Okha’s grin had broadened to a delighted smile. “Your music will be lovely when I’m done with your training.” 

“Thank ye, Okha.” Haden surprised even himself by flinging his arms around Okha in a sudden embrace. “For forgivin’ me and teachin’ me music.”


End file.
